In a telephone interview with Al-Monitor, teacher Khawla Maksad expressed her irritation with the decline in the educational level of students, which she attributed to many reasons but mainly to the large number of official and unofficial holidays.
"The educational level in Iraq is generally weak, as the school hours are few and schools are not equipped with modern educational tools. This is not to mention the frequent official and unofficial holidays that make matters worse," she said.
The Ministry of Education is well aware of this predicament but does not have any solutions to offer. Maksad confirmed that she and fellow teachers raised this issue and organized petitions presented to the ministry, demanding improvements at the educational level and addressing the issue of frequent holidays — but to no avail.
According to Maksad, many students are not qualified to move to the next class level, but the Ministry of Education's standards allow unqualified students to pass.
The media has been reporting that Iraq ranks first in the world in terms of highest number of vacation days per year.
The frequent holidays also have a negative impact on other industries such as the media, which has to deal with the frequent closing of printing presses and the present depression in the media markets.
Comments are closed.